Category: Testimony for 5/29/2014 State Dept. meeting

Lutherans organizing 50 refugees to lobby Congress for more refugees and more money

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

The Lutheran church has all the right in the world to lobby Congress for whatever it wants, but what is so infuriating about this news release is that we know that US taxpayers foot almost the entire budget of the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services (LIRS) and thus we pay for their “advocacy.”

LIRS headquarters near Baltimore’s Inner Harbor. They need taxpayer $$$ to keep it all going!

Here is what we reported a year ago when LIRS was lobbying for the Gang of Eight amnesty bill.  LIRS budget:

Have a look at a recent Form 990 for Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services, page 9. They had income in that year of $31,653,748 and, of that, you, the taxpayers of America, gave them $30,376,568.  Their CEO makes $204,186 in salary and benefits.  Where is the ACLU?  No separation of church and state here!   The church is the state! 

Here (and below) is their entire press release yesterday (emphasis is mine).

I find it unspeakably shameful that they should use your tax dollars and the refugees themselves to lobby the federal government for more money and more refugees (LIRS is paid by the head for each refugee they resettle).

What happened to private Christian charity?

World Refugee Day Academy to be Held in Baltimore Event will convene over 50 former refugees

BALTIMORE, May 23, 2014 /NEWS.GNOM.ES/ – As part of its 75th anniversary celebration, Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service (LIRS) will host World Refugee Day Academy, a three-day event for former refugees focusing on building advocacy, community organizing, and leadership skills. The event will take place June 18-20, 2014 in Baltimore and Washington, DC.

Fifty-one participants, including two training facilitators who are also former refugees, were selected from a pool of applicants with demonstrated leadership experience, strong ties to their local communities, and a desire to mobilize in support of pro-refugee policy. The participants hail from 27 different states and represent 18 nationalities of origin. Each individual’s inspiring story of overcoming hardship to become a community leader illustrates the courage and perseverance of former refugees. The Academy schedule is as follows:

~Wednesday, June 18th: Academy participants will take part in advocacy training on issues impacting refugee communities and will prepare for visits with elected officials on Capitol Hill.

~Thursday, June 19th: Participants will travel to Washington, DC to meet with Senators, members of the House and their staffers in an effort to share their personal stories in support of pro-refugee legislation.

~Friday, June 20th: Agenda will focus on developing essential skills for community organizing and leadership. Participants will work together to plan year-long initiatives for their local communities. After they return home, the network of World Refugee Day Academy participants will serve as a support system and resource for the work of each leader in his or her community.

For more information about LIRS or World Refugee Day Academy, please contact Folabi Olagbaju at 202-626-7931. Media interested in attending Capitol Hill meetings on June 19th may contact Miji Bell, 410-230-2841.

Founded in 1939, LIRS is nationally recognized for advocating for and with refugees, asylum seekers, unaccompanied children, immigrants in detention, families fractured by migration and other vulnerable populations, and for serving migrants through 60 grassroots legal and social service partners across the United States. Celebrating 75 years of service and advocacy this year, LIRS has helped more than 500,000 migrants and refugees rebuild their lives in America.

Press Contact: Miji Bell
410-230-2841, mbell@lirs.org

There are a few things you can do:

If you are a Lutheran and think this stinks, let church leaders know.  Tell LIRS too what you think.  Then tell your elected officials how you feel and ask for oversight hearings to begin to reform this out-of-control federally-funded program.

To counter LIRS propaganda campaign, it is even more important for you to send comments to the US State Department by May 29th and send those comments to your elected officials in Washington next week and throughout early June.

Ten reasons there should be a complete moratorium on refugee resettlement

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Editors note:  This (below) is the testimony I delivered (in person) to the US State Department in 2012 for it annual hearing to determine the “size and scope” of refugee admissions for the upcoming fiscal year.  I submitted the same testimony in 2013 and will do the same this year.  Since the ‘M’-word has been mentioned in two of our previous posts, here and here, I’m joining the chorus (again!).

 

Originally posted here in April 2012:

 

This is the comment I sent to the US State Department yesterday [two years ago—ed] to be included in their record of the May 1 meeting where mostly contractors and refugee advocates make a pitch to the State Department to resettle more refugees from this country, or that one, to the US in FY2013.

Ten Reasons there should be no refugees resettled in the US in FY2013—instead a moratorium should be put in place until the program is reformed and the economy completely recovers.

1)    There are no jobs. The program was never meant to be simply a way to import impoverished people to the US and place them on an already overtaxed welfare system.

2)     The program has become a cash cow for various “religious” organizations and other contractors who very often appear to care more about the next group of refugees coming in (and the cash that comes with each one) than the group they resettled only a few months earlier. Stories of refugees suffering throughout the US are rampant.

3)   Terrorist organizations (mostly Islamic) are using the program that still clearly has many failings in the security screening system.  Indeed consideration should be given to halting the resettlement of Muslims altogether.  Also, the UN should have no role in choosing refugees for the US.

4)    The public is not confident that screenings for potential terrorists (#3) or the incidences of other types of fraudulent entry are being properly and thoroughly investigated and stopped.  When fraud is uncovered—either fraud to enter the country or illegal activity once the refugee has been resettled—punishment should be immediate deportation.

5)     The agencies, specifically the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), is in complete disarray as regards its legally mandated requirement to report to Congress every year on how refugees are doing and where the millions of tax dollars are going that run the program.  The last (and most recent) annual report to be sent to Congress is the 2008 report—so they are out of compliance for fiscal years 2009, 2010 and 2011.***  A moratorium is necessary in order for the ORR to bring its records entirely up-to-date. Additionally,  there needs to be an adequate tracking system designed to gather required data—frankly some of the numbers reported for such measures of dependence on welfare as food stamp usage, cash assistance and employment status are nothing more than guesses.  (The lack of reports for recent years signals either bureaucratic incompetence and disregard for the law, or, causes one to wonder if there is something ORR is hiding.)

6)    The State Department and the ORR have so far failed to adequately determine and report (and track once the refugee has been admitted) the myriad communicable and costly-to-treat diseases entering the country with the refugee population.

7)   Congress needs to specifically disallow the use of the refugee program for other purposes of the US Government, especially using certain refugee populations to address unrelated foreign policy objectives—Uzbeks, Kosovars, Meshketians and Bhutanese (Nepalese) people come to mind.

8)   Congress needs to investigate and specifically disallow any connection between this program and big businesses looking for cheap and captive labor.  The federal government should not be acting as head-hunter for corporations.

9)     The Volag system should be completely abolished and the program should be run by state agencies with accountability to the public through their state legislatures. The system as presently constituted is surely unconstitutional.  (One of many benefits of turning the program over to a state agency is to break up the government/contractor revolving door that is being demonstrated now at both the State Department and ORR.)  The participating state agency’s job would be to find groups, churches, or individuals who would sponsor a refugee family completely for at least a year and monitor those sponsors. Their job would include making sure refugees are assimilating. A mechanism should be established that would allow a refugee to go home if he or she is unhappy or simply can’t make it in America. Short of a complete halt to resettlement-by-contractor, taxpayers should be protected by legally requiring financial audits of contractors and subcontractors on an annual basis.

10)   As part of #9, there needs to be established a process for alerting communities to the impending arrival of refugees that includes reports from the federal government (with local input) about the social and economic impact a certain new group of refugees will have on a city or town.   This report would be presented to the public through public hearings and the local government would have an opportunity to say ‘no.’

 

For these reasons and more, the Refugee admissions program should be placed on hold and a serious effort made by Congress to either scrap the whole thing or reform it during the moratorium.  My recommendation for 2013, 2014 2015 is to stop the program now.  The Office of the President could indeed ask for hearings to review the Refugee Resettlement Act of 1980-–three decades is time enough to see its failings and determine if reauthorization is feasible or whether a whole new law needs to be written.

I suspect the major impediments to reform will be the contractors who make their living from the program (and use the refugees for political goals) and big business which has entwined itself with the federal agencies, the Volags and certain Members of Congress (on both sides of the political aisle) to keep the captive labor coming.

Please get your comments in to the US State Department for FY 2015, go here for instructions! You have only until May 29th.  Be sure to ask for a copy of the complete public record (all of the testimony, everyone’s testimony!) to be sent to you. And again, the most important point of this exercise is to alert your US Senators and Members of Congress to your concerns.

***Hey, check it out!   Progress! They are only two years out of compliance now!  ORR still owes Congress reports for 2012 and 2013, but at least it isn’t 3 years!

 

 

Former refugee worker testified last year; revealed serious flaws in refugee program

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Editors note:  As I mentioned previously, I am going to re-post several significant comments that were sent (or delivered in person) to the US State Department for its “scoping” meeting in advance of fiscal year 2014.  This is the first in a series.  All other testimony we published last year can be found in this category (Testimony for 5/15/2013 State Dept. meeting).

Remember you have until May 29th to get your testimony submitted to the State Department.

 Re-post from here (one year ago today!)….

In a must-read letter to the US State Department a 25-year veteran of the International Rescue Committee (one of the largest of the top nine federal contractors) calls for a moratorium on refugee resettlement until the ORR (Office of Refugee Resettlement) and the volags (contractors) get their act together.

Boston on our minds. The IRC closed its Boston office in 2009. But, several other refugee contractors are still doing business there.

Consider this long-time Boston resident’s comments about fraud and lax security screening in the light of two posts we have written in the last two days, here and here.  It all rings true.

Editor:  This is one more, but, by far the most damning, of the testimony we have been publishing in advance of this Wednesday’s hearing at the US State Department.  All other testimonies we have received are archived here.

(Emphasis below is mine)

Ms. Anne Richard
Asst. Secretary of State for Population, Refugees and Migration
US State Department
Washington, DC. 20520

April 27, 2013

Re: Federal Register Public Notice 8241 Comment Request

Dear Ms Richard:

I worked for the IRC in several capacities from 1980 until 2004 (caseworker, deputy director of the Boston office). In 2004, amid increasing budget constraints, I volunteered for a lay off. At the time, my heart was still into the work I loved and I continued to volunteer for two additional years, spending 3 days a week working on the family reunification program, in which I was considered an “expert.”

Early on, I grew familiar with the fraud that was rampant throughout the program, from the refugees themselves (sometimes forgivable), the overseas OPE’s (not forgivable) and on up to the UN (most unforgivable). Most of my colleagues were also aware of it, and while they often joked about it, almost no one did anything to change or challenge it.

In our work, it was all about “getting the numbers,” often at the expense of legitimate screening for “real“ refugees.

To be honest, I never turned a blind eye to obvious fraud, but had been instructed to give all refugee applicants “the benefit of the doubt.” Yet there were many applications about which I had serious reservations. Some of them were classically laughable ( “I don’t remember my mother’s name… let me make a phone call..”). There were more than a few applicants that I rejected (or referred to another Volag that might not have had the same concerns).

Being directly “in the field,” it’s often difficult to objectively see outside the perimeters of our day to day work.

My major concern was helping people re-unite with close and legitimate family members whose relationship I believed to exist in fact. I can’t tell you how many times, after resettlement that those relationships were revealed to be fraudulent. Sometimes the reasons were understandable from a human kindness point of view ( claiming an orphaned niece as a sister), but often those “relationships” were simple financial transactions.

In my long years at the IRC, I assisted many ethnic groups. I can say without reservation that the Somalis were among the most duplicitous. There was a time when I suggested that they swear on the Quran before signing the affidavit of relationship. Most of the time they would flee and not return. That practice was discontinued, being deemed politically incorrect.

All of us in the field know just how weak the “security screening” was. It’s mostly a very poor and ineffective system of simple name checks from countries that for the most part keep no records.

I personally had some concerns about some Iraqi refugees admitted in the mid 90’s.

One of them went on to become implicated in the Oklahoma City bombings. Being a volag worker, I was very protective of him but, having spent hours with him in the emergency room of a mental hospital.  I still have not been able to say to myself that he was not involved.

It is time for a moratorium on refugee resettlement until ORR and the volags get their act together.

Refugee resettlement affects every community it touches, from Lewiston ME, Minneapolis MN,  to Kansas City KS.

The Volags hide behind their time frame responsibility fences. While I agree that they do not have funding to do much beyond initial basic placement, this is hardly adequate for a successful program, when most refugees end up being on long term public assistance.

The present program is really a “resettle and dump on the community” thing. This is not fair to the communities, the refugees or the volags.

ORR has yet to release long overdue federally mandated reports that show welfare dependency rates or employment figures. Some people say that ORR may have something to hide. I tend to agree.

Refugees are not assimilating for the most part. (some argue that refugees should not “assimilate” but “integrate” but , to me, it‘s all the same, since the majority do neither.). The State Dept continues to fund MAA’s (ethnic based organizations) which only keep immigrant and refugee communities separate and ghettoized.

As someone who spent most of my adult lifetime working in this field, I ask for a serious second look at the current program.

After 9/11, I was, as always, very vocal in defense of refugees and the US refugee program , convinced that no one admitted under the program could possibly be or become a terrorist. Regrettably, my mind has changed.

I now believe that we need a moratorium on continued resettlement until such time as ORR can get its house in order and present a restructured program that can provide safe haven for those truly in need and at the same time guarantee that this currently flawed program does not admit persons unworthy of our kind-heartedness or who are unwilling to become a positive part of our national fabric.

I do think the US should continue to receive some refugees, but it needs to be a much smaller and very carefully monitored program. The current one is a huge mess and a danger to our security and a detriment to our economy and society.

Respectfully,

Michael Sirois

No need for me to say anything further, except maybe to remind readers that S.744 (the Gang of Eight bill in the Senate) provides more funding for resettlement contractors and makes it easier for a greater number and variety of refugees/asylum seekers to gain admission to the US.

About the photo caption:  We wrote about the closure of the IRC Boston office here in 2009.  Visit it!

Don’t forget! US State Department taking comments on FY2015 refugee program

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Update May 19th:  Refugee advocates (aka contractors) will be lobbying Congress during the week of June 2-6 for more refugees and more $$$$ (here).

Although, as we reported here last month there will be NO OPPORTUNITY TO TESTIFY IN PERSON.

Many readers have asked about how to submit their testimony.  We will outline that below.  However, the most important thing you can do is to send your testimony to your elected representatives in Washington—your Congressman and your two Senators (even if they are hopeless!).   Be sure to ask them for a response to your concerns!

Also, tell them there should be PUBLIC hearings on the program throughout the country next year! 

Then please consider using your testimony in your local media—do a press release or letter to the editor and say you testified to the US State Department about the “size and scope” of the program for FY15.

Your testimony needn’t be long or detailed, but it must be polite and professional (LOL! please refrain from using some of the language we are seeing in rejected comments here at RRW).

Address testimony to Anne C. Richard

Testimony is due in to the US State Department by 5 p.m. May 29th!

Your testimony can be long or short, detailed or general, but get something in by the deadline of 5 p.m. May 29th!

Address testimony to:   Anne C. Richard, Asst. Secretary of State for Population, Refugees and Migration, US State Department, Washington, DC.

Reference Federal Register Public Notice 8690

E-mail or fax to Delicia Spruell:

Persons wishing to present written comments should submit them by 5 p.m. on Thursday May 29, 2014 via email to spruellda@state.gov or fax (202) 453-9393.

Now listen-up, this is important!   If you don’t copy your testimony to your elected officials, you can be sure your testimony to the State Department will never see the light of day!  Unless….

New this year!  Ask the State Department for a complete record of the comments and tell your elected officials that you want a public record of all comments!  I was able to get them in person last year, but that is not possible now since the (in-person) hearing has been abandoned.

To get the most bang for your buck, you must put cc at the bottom of your testimony and list the following:

~Your member of the House of Representatives  (look up their addresses!)

~Your US Senators

~Any elected officials in your state who may be interested

Also, send to the pertinent House and Senate committees that deal with refugee issues.  You don’t have to send to each committee member but those are linked here for your information:

~US Senate Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on Immigration, Refugees and Border Security.  Go here for list of Subcommittee Members.  You will be mailing to the Subcommittee, however, if your US Senator is on that subcommittee then please be sure they are listed prominently on the testimony you send to the State Department.  Mail to:  U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on Immigration, Refugees and Border Security, 224 Dirksen Senate Office Building, Washington, DC 20510.  Mail your testimony to the Subcommittee even if your Senator is not on it!

~House of Representatives Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on Immigration and Border Security.  Go here for a list of all the Subcommittee Members*** and see if your Member of Congress is on the Subcommittee.  But, even if he or she isn’t then still send your testimony here (addressed to the Subcommittee):  2138 Rayburn House Office Building, Washington, DC 20515, p/202-225-3951.

When sending anything to your US Senators or Members of Congress always ask a question so that hopefully it forces them to answer your letter!  You might ask them to put pressure on the State Department to have  “hearings” held in several locations around the country next year!

***Rep. Trey Gowdy is the chairman of the subcommittee and needs educating on this issue!  If you do nothing else, send your testimony to him!

Any questions?  Put your question in the comment section to this post, and I’ll try to answer it there because others may have the same question.  Or, you may have suggestions for others planning to write testimony that I didn’t think of!

US State Department will not hear public testimony on refugee program this year

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

For the first time that I know of, there will be no opportunity for the public to go to Washington (frankly they should be having hearings all over the country!) to make suggestions for the refugee program for the upcoming fiscal year.

See announcement of public comment period here.

We can only conclude that officials were not happy with the outspoken testimony given by a handful of concerned citizens in the last two or three cycles.

Anne C. Richard Assistant Secretary of State for PRM.

I’ve been to the last two, and two years ago the room was mostly filled with contractors and others employed in the refugee business.  Several of us testified that the program needed to be changed.  [You can see my testimony here—ten reasons for a moratorium on refugee resettlement.  I presented virtually the same testimony both years.]

Last year a larger number of critics were in attendance and many of the contractors had apparently simply mailed in their comments and didn’t attend.  Here is my report from last year.

We just got word yesterday that there will be no hearing at all this year.

In the past two years (and I assume previously as well), the only way for your mailed-in testimony to see the light of day was by those of us in attendance bringing it home to review.  There was no public record made.

This year we must insist on a published public record.  Don’t send your comments yet, you have time.   I’ll have more information later….gotta run today! 

And, as I said I will be re-posting some of last year’s testimony so you can see what some of your fellow citizens had to say.

Anne C. Richard is Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees and Migration.  She was formerly employed as a contractor (International Rescue Committee) and was likely the official responsible for making the decision to have no public hearing for FY 2015.